A new 'surprise' driver was issued, this is the AMD Catalyst 11.8 Preview Driver.

AMD Catalyst Control Center / AMD Vision Engine Control Center 11.8 Driver Preview Features:

The following download provides the following features in addition to the AMD Catalyst Control Center / AMD Vision Engine Control Center 11.7 driver release

Enables AMD HD3D technology support on DisplayPort panels, such as Samsung 750 and 950 series 3D displays
Improves performance:

• Up to 10% in Crysis 2 DirectX 11 version for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on the AMD Radeon
  

We look at the Corsair Force GT, an all new SATA 3 SSD. Compared to the Force 3 the difference in-between the two products is to be found in its NAND flash memory, the GT will be a notch faster in throughput as it makes use of synchronous NAND flash memory, the recently tested regular 3 model will run one gear slower, yet still incredibly fast thanks to slightly cheaper asynchronous NAND flash memory. Both drives come with that SandForce SF-2281 controller to deliver at up to 555 MBps read and 515 MBps write speeds.

Cooler Master is releasing a new Hyper 612S CPU Cooler. Actually two region bound models, the Hyper 612S (EU) And 612 PWM (US) CPU Cooling Solutions.

With the use of the silent mode adapter the 612 series can run at incredibly low noise without sacrificing too much cooling performance thanks to its 6 long Heat pipes and massive fin surface area. Or you can add an additional 120mm fan to boost the air throughput and improve its cooling performance even further.

Innovative design and materials
The Hyper 612 series CPU coolers are designed for optimum heat dissipation at low fan speeds thanks to wider fin gaps, a special fin blade design, and a precise Heat pipe layout that has all 6 Heat pipes crossing the CPU

The first Sandy Bridge-E desktop processors create more and more discussion on the web, as it looks now they'll be released  as soon as October of this year already.

Intel's apparantly now plans the chips to be launched in weeks 40 to 49 of 2011, which span from the beginning of October all the way to December.

A publication also uncovered the price of the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E based Core i7-3930K, which is expected to retail for $560. This makes it about $23 cheaper than the six-core Core i7-980/970.

While no information regarding the pricing of the high-end Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition was provided, this is expected to hover around the $999 mark. Intel's initial Sandy Bridge-E desktop launch will also include a third chip that is known as the Core i7-3820.

This is the slowest of the three CPUs to be launched as it includes only four processing cores with a base clock speed of 3.60 GHz and a maximum Turbo speed of 3.90 GHz. These are accompanied by 10MB of Level 3 cache memory.

For the Core i7-3960X and Core i7-3930K, Intel has increased the core count to six as well as the amount of L3 cache integrated to 12MB and 15MB, respectively. However, the base operating frequencies are lower than that of the quad-core processor, as the Core i7-3960X is clocked at 3.30GHz with a maximum Turbo of 3.90GHz, while the Core i7-3930K works at 3.2GHz and has a maximum Turbo of 3.80GHz.

All the processors sport a quad-channel DDR3 memory controller that can officially support memory speeds up to 1333MHz.

OCZ Technology released a refresh of the Talos Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 6Gb/s SSDs with OCZ's proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture (VCA) 2.0. Designed for enterprise applications with mixed workloads, the Talos Series with VCA 2.0 delivers even greater performance for SAS-based storage infrastructures.

OCZ's Talos with VCA 2.0 technology provides customers with a robust enterprise feature-set while substantially increasing mixed workload performance. Talos now utilizes VCA 2.0's unique command queuing and queue balance algorithms to address the demands of today's I/O intensive enterprise applications, which require high levels of sustained IOPS and bandwidth, across file sizes and read/write ratios. While traditional SAS SSDs can only perform one read or write at a time, OCZ Talos drives with VCA 2.0, can read and write simultaneously, substantially increasing performance.

Talos SAS SSDs deliver excellent mixed-workload performance with up to 66,000 IOPS (burst) and 50,000 sustained read/write IOPS with incompressible 4K files sizes, and 34,000 sustained mixed read/write IOPS with incompressible 8K files. As a result, Talos is the ideal full duplex SAS solution for applications that may benefit from increased 8K and 16K sustained IOPS, including databases which use a default block size of 8K, or increased incompressible performance such as the growing need of datacenters to provide fast access to compressed video and audio files.

Additionally, Talos' SAS 6Gb/s interface enables easy deployment with existing devices and appliances and the drives themselves provide clients with world-class reliability features including superior power loss protection, endurance, encryption, and ECC protection.

The refreshed Talos Series with VCA 2.0 is now available for strategic customers in capacities up to 960GB, and the drives will be made available to SMB and enterprise clients through OCZ's business-to-business channel.

Silicon Power announced the Velox Series V30, which is targeting gamers and enthusiasts in need of high-performance storage.

Silicon Power's new solid state drive series will comprise four models that span in capacity between 60GB and 480GB, and all of these will use the 2.5-inch form factor that is standard for most notebooks. At the heart of the drives stands the second-generation SandForce SF-2281 controller which features native SATA 6Gbps support as well as eight memory channels that are to be connected to NAND Flash chips. Silicon Power doesn't say anything about the type of NAND these drives use, but it does provide us with a series of details regarding the sequential performance of its Velox Series V30 SSDs.

According to this information, all the units that include between 60GB and 240GB of storage space have their maximum sequential read performance set at 550MB/s, while sequential write speeds vary from 500MB/s to 520MB/s. In the case of the 480GB drive things are a tad more complicated as both sequential read and write speeds are set bellow those of the smaller drives, at 540MB/s and 460MB/s, respectively. Maximum 4K random write performance is estimated at 40,000 IOPS for the 480GB SSD, while the remaining drives provide 80K or 85K IOPS.

Unfortunately, Silicon Power refrained itself from providing any information regarding the release date and price of the Velox Series V30 SSDs.

Razer announced its Switchblade concept a while ago, but we now learned that it will be powered by Intel's Atom Z690 (1.70GHz) processor:

Razer, the world

They guys over at BSN had a sharp eye, AMD has lowered its performance projections for the Bulldozer-based Opteron chips. The company now says Bulldozer will deliver a 35 percent performance increase, while it previously talked about a 50 percent increase in throughput:

While we are currently working on a detailed analysis of the AMD Second Quarter 2011 earnings call (which should follow within a few hours), we wanted to immediately share this detail in a breakout article: Without blinking an eye, AMD just lowered the performance guidance for their 16-core product Interlagos from 50% to 35%. Considering that the CPU integrates 33% more integer compute resources, this figure looks somewhat disappointing.

Quoting Thomas Seifert, interim CEO and CFO at AMD, during yesterdays earnings call: "The Interlagos platform is our first server offering, optimized for today's cloud datacenters and the architecture excels at compute-intensive and HPC workloads, where it will deliver up to 35% performance improvements compared to our current offerings."

ASRock launched its Z68M-ITX/HT motherboard which should prove to be one of the more wallet friendly mini-ITX Z68 boards out there. That said, it's hardly a crowded market space at the moment with Zotac having the only other two models currently available.

As this is a mini-ITX board, the Z68M-ITX/HT is fairly feature light with only a single x16 PCI Express slot and four SATA ports, as well as a pair of headers for two USB 2.0 ports. The real action happens around the back where we have a PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and a DVI, D-Sub and HDMI port.

ASRock also supplies an infrared dongle and a Windows MCE compatible remote with the board which is a nice added extra considering that a fair few of these boards are likely to end up in HTPC type systems. You also get a copy of Lucid Logix Virtu graphics switching software in the box. No word on pricing as yet, but considering that ASRock's H67 version of this board is one of the more affordable H67 mini-ITX boards, we'd expect the Z68M-ITX/HT to end up being only slightly more expensive.

Patriot released the Supersonic Xpress USB 3.0 drives for mainstream users. The 32GB model offers 60MB/s read speed and 25MB/s write speed, while the 8GB version is limited to 50MB/s and 20MB/s, respectively.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash, storage and enthusiast computer products, today announces the Supersonic Xpress USB 3.0 flash drive for mainstream users that combines portability and a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface for maximum performance at an affordable price.

The Patriot Supersonic Xpress USB 3.0 flash drive features a stylish cap-less design that hides the USB 3.0 connector when not in use

The processors are part of the Corona platform. From the information that is available "Komodo" will be built using the Piledriver CPU core, which is revised Bulldozer architecture, it will feature a similar feature set including on-board DDR3 memory controller and  Turbo Core technology 3.0 version.

AMD's next-generation Bulldozer processors will also arrive with a new socket design, that goes by the name of FM2 and that will also be used by the 2012 Trinity APUs.

Together with the new processors AMD also releases a new family of motherboard chipsets with the biggest change being a FCH (Fusion controller hub) design, which means that the PCI Express controller will be integrated inside the Komodo processors.

The Hydson D4 chipset will also have native support for USB 3.0 (up to four such ports), eight SATA 6Gbps ports, RAID 0/1/5/10 support as well as 10 USB 2.0 ports.

The leaked AMD slide also goes on to detail the company's Virgo and Deccan platforms, which are expected to replace the current Lynx and Brazos solutions.

Clock on the image to zoom.

Two out of four models, Opteron 6272 and 6276, will have 16 CPU cores. These processors will run at 2.1 and 2.3 GHz. Opteron 6234 is a 12-core chip, operating at 2.4 GHz. The last model, Opteron 6220, will come with 8 cores, although they will be clocked at higher 3 GHz frequency. We suspect that all CPUs will fit standard 115 Watt thermal envelope.

Opteron 6272 can be pre-ordered from ShopBLT store. According to the store, the CPU has OS6272WKTGGGU part number, 16 MB L3 cache, and 115 Watt TDP. 2.1 GHz clock frequency of this microprocessor matches processor speed on the Gateway AR385F1 configuration page. Pre-order price for this model is $849.02.

Click on the image to zoom

AMD's Interlagos processors will have either 12 or 16 processing cores, while also featuring a series of improvements that should increase their performance when compared with the current Opteron 6100-series CPUs.

The chips will feature AMD's Turbo Core dynamic overclocking technology, a configurable TDP, and come with advanced power saving technologies.

Interlagos CPUs features a multi-chip design (the processor is built by joining together two six or eight core Valencia dies) and are compatible with the existing G34 socket.

The AMD representatives haven't disclosed any information regarding the release date of the Valencia server processors, or about the desktop version of these Bulldozer CPUs.

However, a recent FX-Series advertising movie revealed that processor series will launch on September 19.

Download Media Player Classic Home Cinema v1.5.2.3456 This open Source Media Player allows you to enhance, decode and accelerate a broad span of movie formats like x.264 with GPU assisted acceleration and image quality enhancing.

Modern graphics card offer the possibility to decode partially or completely a video stream using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA), in order to reduce CPU usage dramatically. MPC-HC includes an embedded video decoder that uses this technology, to decode x.264, H.264 and VC-1 with hardly any CPU time required.

Download

The WindForce 2X cooler that now packs three copper heatpipes and an intricate fan design. NEC Proadlizerrs are also present on the graphics card. Gigabyte's latest GTX 560 Ti creations have the part number GV-N560UD-1GI, and should become available shortly. Pricing hasn't been announced, but is expected to hover around the

Dell today added a nice IPS screen (color precise) towards its lineup. It's the UltraSharp U2412M monitor, intended for business users. This 24-inch monitor uses an IPS panel that provides viewing angles of 178/178 degrees, its stand is designed to allow a number of orientation adjustments, including tilt, swivel, pivot and height.

The U2412M comes with a full-HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, unfortunately not 19200x1200

It has real 1,000:1 and 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratios; 300 cd/m

We are sure a lot of people are waiting it for a long time. Today the MSI Afterburner APP 1.0.0 RC3 on Android is ready for you to download and test.

There are some known issues that we are still working on, but it should provide a great user experience to you.

Known issue:

1. Support to multi graphics cards.
2. degree c is shown as

HIS released a graphics card with LUCID Hydra embedded in it. What will happen if you MIX their Radeon 6970 ICEQ card with a GeForce GTX 580?

HIS took a blue colored PCB, plastered the R6970 GPU and two Gigs of memory on there along with a new model of the ICEQ cooler. Next to that they embedded that LUCID Hydra chip, allowing you to run say an NVIDIA graphics card alongside this card and in theory increase your game performance.

Has LUCID shaped up anno 2011? Well, let's find out. you can read the review right here.

The system used to reach this high clock speed was based on a Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H motherboardand was cooled with liquid nitrogen (LN2), which has a boiling point of -195.79

Curiosity is about the size of a mini cooper and is four times more heavy than the Spirit and Opportunity which were launched in 2004. The Curiosity also comes with a larger robot arm, a laser that can split rocks, a weather station, and a percussive drill for drilling rocks. Unlike the Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity also has on board 10.5 pounds of plutonium-238! Yes, Curiosity is nuclear-powered instead of solar powered like the previous rovers. No sun is required to power the systems on board.

The NASA Curiosity rover is set to land at the Gale Crater, a 150km wide depression  which includes a 5km high mound of sediments which may have once been flooded with water millions of years ago. Mars rover Curiosity should give us a great glimpse into this ancient past and provide us with more proof of water and possibly life that once lived on Mars.

Nexus introduced the SM-9000B and SM-9000C silent laser mice. The mouse click used to be necessary as PC

ROCCAT intor's based off the Isku Illuminated, a new gaming keyboard that will ship in early September for 79.99 EUR.

ROCCAT